I got a rather flattering review for my one-page comic for "Åbocalypse 2012" anthology from Toni Jerrman in Tähtivaeltaja sci-fi fanzine 3/12. He stated it shows that yours truly belongs to the elite of the Finnish comic artists. I was bit surprised by this but of course took it as a great compliment and feel encouraged to produce something really worthy of a mention.

There is a one technical problem that I would like to bring out. I decided to put a halftone screen over the comic, and instead of simply filling some areas with gray colour and let the printer define how it comes out, I chose to make my own digital "halftone sheets". Fundamentally it was easy to make a simple sheet but unfortunately the result left something to desire. I will describe the way I did it.

1) A detail of lineart without halftone screen.

2) I make a new grayscale file, the same size as the lineart picture. I fill it with 20% gray and change to Bitmap, with the same resolution as in the lineart picture but with Method as Halftone screen. I test different frequencies of lines / inch and end up using 90.

3) Here is the result. I copy the rasterized picture and paste it on top of the lineart picture on its own layer (the image mode of the lineart was first changed from Bitmap to Grayscale). After this I change the layer mode to Multiply.

4) At the Quick Mask Mode I mark with brush the areas (in red) I like to be covered with the halftone screen and add a Layer Mask on the same layer as the halftone screen.

5) Now the picture is ready and I can flatten the whole comic as one Bitmap file.

When I printed the comic from my own printer in the final size, the halftone screen seemed to work fine. Unfortunately in the printed anthology there was some moiré , like small boxes (it becomes clearer in real printed image) In principle the halftone sheet I made should have worked like an old Letratone sheet and the file being a true lineart should have printed out like I planned it. I am not able to say what the problem is. Did the printing house have their own settings or was the PDF file of the anthology faulty? I believe the antology was printed in digital printer. Would it have been different with traditional offset printer? Or maybe the maker of the comic fumbled? Educated guesses and foolproof information will be gladly accepted in comments.

EDIT: It seems that the comic has been upscaled 6% from the original file. Could the reason really be this, as it has been bet in comments and elsewhere?